1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pre-fill chamber for an incinerator, the type particularly useful for burning various materials.
2. Brief Description of Prior Art.
The field of the present invention relates to an incinerator of the type that generally includes a lid or cover which is removably mounted on a trash container such as a 20 gallon trash can or a 55 gallon drum. The lid has an opening for directing air tangentially into the top of the container upon which it is mounted, and it has a central exhaust opening through which the combustion gases escape from the incinerator. The principle of the prior art incinerator has been to create, at the upper portion of the incinerator, a centrifugal swirl of combusting gases which burn the combustibles from the top down and in so doing tend to retain the combustibles for a long period of time whereby to effect their substantially complete burning.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,791,319 discloses such an incinerator which includes a retardation chamber at the top of the lid and of substantially smaller diameter than the lid rim and bringing air into the top of the retardation chamber. The smaller diameter tends to retain the high velocity of the incoming air before it expands into the larger container. In flowing downwardly into the retardation chamber, it captures and retains for a longer period the upwardly flowing particles. The '319 registration further provides a baffle plate supported below the exhaust opening of the lid. The baffle plate blocks the flow of gases and entrained solids upwardly from the center of the combusting material, causing the gases to be diverted to the perimeter of the incinerator lid. In the parameter of the incinerator lid, the gases and entrained particles are caught into the tangential flow of gases whereby the centrifugal force on the particles tend to retain them in the parameter of the lid until they are significantly more completely burned. Thus, the net effect of the baffle is to increase the residence time of the particles in the incinerator, thereby considerably increasing the extent to which they are combusted.
In application of the prior art incinerator, the lid is removed and the container is filled with the combustible material. The top most combustibles are ignited and the lid is replaced. A blower motor is energized to cause air to circulate in the lid and down upon the combustibles. Very rapidly, a roaring fire is created within the container whose temperature may be 1,500 [deg] F. or higher. The top-down burning creates a long retention time for all of the particles thereby assuring substantially complete combustion. Obviously, the lid of the '319 incinerator must be removed before re-filling the container with combustibles. As such, before removing the lid, any fires within the container must burn-out before re-filling. As such, application of the prior art incinerators requires filling the container, completely burning the material within the container, and once the fire has burned-out, then re-filling the container with combustibles. This is obviously a very time consuming process, especially when there is substantial material to be burned.
As will be seen from the subsequent description, the preferred embodiments of the present invention overcome shortcomings of the prior art.